Only God Forgives (2013)

(Video on Demand, September 2013) I wasn’t a big fan of Drive, so the idea of a reunion between star Ryan Gosling and writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn wasn’t the draw that it was for other reviewers. Much to my dismay, it turns out the Only God Forgives (great title, right?) takes the worst aspects of Drive and magnifies them: The plotlessness, the tepid tempo, the garish color scheme, the brutal gore, the expressionless characters… it just goes on and on without much of a point, even though Vithaya Pansringarm is a force of nature as the vengeful policeman righting the wrongs made by Gosling’s family. It’s an unpleasant film in tone, approach and material, made worse by a lack of point and the bare skeleton of a plot stretched over 90 minutes. While the visual polish of the film is undeniable, the directorial flourishes of Only God Forgives can’t save it from pointlessness.